The Pain Clinic at Ramat Aviv Medical Center now joins a small number of similar exclusive treatment clinics that were not widely accessible to the general public. The clinic is a multidisciplinary unit operated by doctors with specialist training in the treatment of pain.

Try to arrive for the examination wearing light, comfortable clothing. Metallic accessories may have an adverse influence on imaging quality. It is therefore recommended not to wear jewellery or garments with zips or large metallic objects attached to them. Please refrain from eating solid food for about 3 hours prior to the examination. Drinking water or taking regular medication is allowed unless specified. For abdominal and pelvic examinations, you should arrive 2 hours in advance, for other examinations half an hour before the appointed time is sufficient. No CT examinations are permitted during pregnancy. If there is any possibility of being pregnant, you must inform the CT technician prior to the examination and a postponement of the examination should be considered.

The examination

On entering the examination room you will be asked to lie on a bed which is an integral part of the CT machine. The CT scanner is a large, square machine around an empty space. This space encircles the examination bed on which the patient lies. The bed, with the patient on it, moves slowly into and out of the CT machine during the course of the examination and during this period images of the body are acquired. During the examination you will be asked to lie quietly on the bed and you will be guided by the technician performing the examination as to the breathing movements required. As the bed moves, rotation sounds can be heard from the CT machine. Although you are alone in the examination room, the technician can see and hear you constantly. The time required for the examination is several minutes, although the radiation itself lasts only a few tens of seconds.

After the examination

You will be able to return to your usual activity. In the event of an intravenous injection of iodine containing a contrast medium, you will be asked to remain under observation for 30 minutes before leaving the facility.

Examination results

Once the examination is completed, the images are passed to a specialist radiologist for interpretation.The interpretation of CT images requires time and concentration. An average examination includes more than 130 individual images, and in some protocols even 500 to 1000 images may be presented for interpretation.We recommend that you should not wait for the results. On the one hand this could be waste of your valuable time, and at the same time it is not good for the interpreting doctor to work under pressure. Should you be in need of an emergency interpretation, you may ask for this service, in which case you will be asked to wait patiently in order to enable a correct interpretation of your scanned images.The results are given to you on a CD together with a printout of the interpretation. The CD is equipped with self-extracting software that enables viewing on any PC screen. The disc also enables measurements and adjustment of various parameters for better diagnosis and more exact viewing and comparison with previous images. If you would also like to receive films with images, this service is available at an additional charge.